Public Participation

Transcript (~15 min @ 48:50)

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▶ 48:47 Peter D. Mortimer: This is a committee of the whole. All members of the Board of Aldermen are members of this committee. This meeting is being recorded by MMTV and DVDs for future viewing are available or you can stream view it on MMTV website or on the City of Melrose website. Is there a motion for public participation? So moved, Mr. Chairman. Second. Alderman Forbes has made a motion to open the floor for public participation, duly seconded by Robert Boycelle, Alderman Boycelle. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. any opposed hearing none we are now open for public participation anyone wishing to speak please come forward state your name and address for the record and you will be heard

▶ 49:33 Speaker 5: julie de lillo 13 circuit street um so again i'm just coming forward with some observations because i just some questions i have the first one has to do with the retro retroactive billing I saw that my meter was red today so today's June 13th and it appears that my bill that will contain that would be sometime in the fall and so I'm trying to figure out just an understanding what's going on if retroactive billing is going away that means like you could only charge me for my at the higher rate for my water use starting july 1st so i'm just sort of the question i have is are there is there water used in june that will go to that that bill and therefore retroactive may not truly be retroactive going away if there may still be some retroactive so that's one second is that when people when they were going in and installing meters into people's homes in their basements I'm not sure if there was a check for all the sump pumps that supposedly are dumping, that are pumping into the sewer system. And so, that's just sort of an observation or a question of why wouldn't we have done that at the time we were putting those meters in. So that's it, thank you.

▶ 50:59 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you very much, Mr. Lilloff.

▶ 51:12 Peter D. Mortimer: Good evening, Mr. Moroz.

▶ 51:14 Speaker 4: Hi, thank you, I'm Jerry Moroz.

▶ 51:20 Speaker 4: You know, I know you're all smart people here, and I come here, as I do in my work, I bring

▶ 51:26 Speaker 4: facts and analysis and give the basis why I recommend a certain decision on something. But in this chamber, the facts and analysis that I've brought to here over the last few years is disregarded you know because I I don't expect that you all are gonna

▶ 51:56 Speaker 4: know the depth of the issues necessarily as I've taken the time to explore myself and to learn about but it strikes me as strange that when the state law says that you can have a second tier say to fairly reflect the volume of high consumption users the resource demand of high consumption uses in the volume of it all of you seem to come out here say oh I like you know no I should say all of you some of you come here the other night and said oh well I like option 4b or I like this option or that option or I'm voting for the tiers well I got to tell you that if you vote for a tiered option and don't support why you believe that people who use more than 2,000 cubic feet or 2,500 cubic feet or 3,000 to 10,000 cost the city in the water system more money than people who use less you haven't if you if you do that you haven't justified it you can't do it the law says to fairly reflect the resource demand and consumption of high volume users if you're gonna go out there and say I'm gonna make these tears to fairly reflect show us how it fairly reflects it I've pointed out here before that the consultants haven't brought forth any cost of service analysis to support there's been zero cost of service analysis let alone a cost of service analysis that would support that people who are using higher volumes of water are crossing the city more money or the water and sewer enterprise more money in some way so I want to put it out there on the record that if you vote for a tiered system be ready and I would believe that you should put it out in advance you know quantify exactly how this is the case I don't see it I presented here a number of times about this issue I don't see that and in fact I see that given that we have such a low fixed charge per user on our system the

▶ 54:04 Speaker 4: people who are using a lot of water as you might call them high volume users are actually disproportionately funding the huge fixed costs of our system way more than people at the lower levels I found it cynical the other night that people talk about oh we can't have 70% of the users have an increase in their water bill well 70% of the users have had a subsidy in their water bill and I I feel it's reprehensible that anybody here would be willing to vote to tax 30% of the people, the minority of people, to pay for and to tax them a huge amount to pay for what 70% of the majority might be getting a benefit of. That's not fair. That's not equitable. People use those terms here. But if you're going to say fair and equitable, you've got to back it up. it's not fair and equitable to give 70% of subsidy because they may vote for you and you'll get votes and get reelected and put the burden on 30% that includes the hospital and some other other large-volume users that again don't cost us any more and they pay more than their fair share so number one tears aren't

▶ 55:17 Speaker 4: supported in any way and I'll be the first person to be out here saying that

▶ 55:24 Speaker 4: it's actually appropriate that people pay their share of the water and sewer rates the water and sewer bills of their fair share not these these shares that have been brought forward here with all these rate options that make it seem like something impressive when really all it is is a recasting of the same thing over and over and over with small nuances different without without meeting the principle of the issue you know you strain the credibility of the

▶ 55:49 Speaker 4: board you strain the trust that people put in this board when you go and you take unjust actions by doing things like this i don't know again i know you're smart people

▶ 56:05 Speaker 4: you know i don't want to be too cynical here and say is it all about the votes and trying to make it look low and i'll tell you at the base of base of everything here there needs to be hard work done to control the escalating costs of melrose i've shown you that we're among the the at the the very highest of the country of water and sewer rates in the country. There's not really much talk about that. I was a person that brought here a few years ago inflow and infiltration issues. But yet, now we have this semantic saying, oh, it's so wonderful now we have a program, not a project. Well, I'll tell you, I'd rather see a comprehensive project today than a program that's going to just use the same money that MWRA makes available to us at no or low cost as they've done every year that we've made use of already. Nobody here has yet proposed, and DPW hasn't proposed, that we actually invest in our system.

▶ 57:04 Speaker 4: You know, it's a difficult issue. It costs money to invest in the system, and that cost of money is going to show higher water and sewer rates. But if we don't ever invest in the system, we're going to be sitting here at the highest of MWRA and the highest of the country year after year after year forever.

▶ 57:24 Speaker 4: it you know for those of you that are so concerned about votes and so concerned about your political standing in the city spend some of that political capital if people believe in you go out and say you know this is a hard job but we have to do it we have to start controlling these things and I also want

▶ 57:42 Speaker 4: to bring up the issue of that it's clear from the conversation the discussion the night here that the alderman feel that they have no choice but to include 270 000 of city water rates city water bills to make the water and sewer rate payers for to have all these city funds and you know they've been very creative about finding costs of the city to put on the water and sewer rate payers let's be very clear it seems very apparent to me that it's purely designed to be be a circumvention of proposition two and a half and you may believe you have no other options

▶ 58:28 Speaker 4: but there are other options there is tough work to be done in the budgets to do things not just to sit there and rubber stamp every single thing the mayor comes forward here you know a few of the members here in this budget process have made have made some efforts at trying to get at some issues and and you know a tiny tiny issue but is important is what one of the aldermen brought up about the um the cost of some of these small committees and what

▶ 58:59 Speaker 4: we give this committees and how it's not equitable between human rights and and you know the new um women's commission and these other things but in that conversation that night what stood out to me is because everybody was saying oh we need the money to pay for the chamber of commerce's victorian fair that we provide main street for free for and that all our city commissions are paying them thousands and thousands of dollars right maybe if we're going to provide our city street for the chamber of commerce to benefit the businesses maybe they can give the city commission something free and that money can be available to pay city costs that we need to pay not given to the chamber of commerce and it's all one big picture right every bit of money that we waste somewhere in the city is money that now we don't have to pay for the city's water and sewer use or for the mayor's staff at some level's cost because they say this. I mean, I can't believe that the auditor has 50% of his time in the city on water and sewer issues. Come on. You know, I can't believe that the city solicitor has, I think, $29,000 for water and sewer issues last year. Come on. What's that, a quarter of a salary on water and sewer? We meet about it once? that's not that this isn't real it's it's not real the numbers that are brought up here and it ties back to water and sewer issues that you're looking at tonight the issue of retroactive billing I was astonished I

▶ 1:00:30 Speaker 4: you know I was pleased to hear that we were going to delay the rate increase till October because it appeared to me the natural thing to do was we were going to get all the meters in place read them all September 30th and bill everybody on September 30th at the rates that we currently have and then we start all fresh on October 1st I was shocked the other night to find out and and and and Alderman Medeiros raised this issue and I I was just shocked that we're gonna have retroactive billing again we're just changing the date from June 30th to September 30th that doesn't solve the issue and by the way

▶ 1:01:04 Speaker 4: retroactive billing is the enemy here proration just to get our terms straight proration is a mitigating strategy to help recover from the harms done of retroactive billing and I can't believe with all the money we spent on the consultant and all the DPW and all the the time billed from the auditor and the city solicitor that somehow we're still doing the same thing but and it's not about whether it's FY 17 rates FY 16 rates it's about is somebody being charged for water and sewer for the month for a certain month at a different rate that somebody else is being charged that's the issue here and the answer under their proposal appears to be yes it's going to be still it doesn't solve the problem now you know we I again I thought that the water the water meters are all going to be in by June 30th and then you know some reasonable delay October 30 it's a great September 30 it's a great time to figure those you

▶ 1:02:01 Peter D. Mortimer: have gone over the 10-minute limit okay I'll finish up include your comments

▶ 1:02:09 Speaker 4: Thank you. You know, people have said it here before that what you decide has to be defensible. And I haven't heard any defense for the proposals or the references that have been made by the people on this board so far as to which option you're going to choose. it's not defensible I see them as being unjust arbitrary I see them as exploiting a situation to tax the water and sewer rate payers to pay for things in the city I don't know what to say more but I appeal to you please there's a way to do this appropriately there's a way to do this legitimately there's a way to do this honestly and transparently I don't believe that that's been done to this point. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moroz. Are there any further members of the

▶ 1:02:59 Peter D. Mortimer: public wishing to come forward to be heard at this time? Seeing none, is there a motion from the board, please? Motion to close public participation. Second. Alderman Forbes has made a motion to close public participation for the Appropriations Committee for this evening. Said motion was duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, public participation is closed. We will now take up the business at hand for the Appropriations